The 'Fortunate 400' and Why They Need a Tax Haircut

[dcsmart]

Have fun with this one.....

The IRS may have given President Obama's new bipartisan fiscal review commission fresh ammunition as the panel considers which taxes to increase to help close the $1.4 trillion deficit.

According to tax authorities, the richest 400 taxpayers each received the equivalent of an $82 million bonus in 2007. These households had an average $345 million income, a 30 percent increase from the previous year, when they made $263 million.

Contrast that with the meager 8 percent bump that 143 million middle-income Americans received in that same time period: According to the Census Bureau, the typical household income was about $52,000 in 2007, about $3,900 more than in 2006.

Looked at another way, the richest 400 taxpayers received an extra $1.5 million each week in 2007, compared with 2006. By contrast, the median full-time worker earned an additional $75 more each week over the same period.

Part of the reason these top taxpayers --- professor Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan calls them the "Fortunate 400" -- did so well in 2007 is because they faced a relatively low tax burden. Even though the top tax rate in 2007 was 35 percent and applied to taxable income above roughly $350,000, none of the top 400 taxpayers actually paid that rate. Most of the income of these 400 households was in the form of capital gains and dividends, which are taxed at a preferential 15 percent rate, rather than the 35 percent that applies to ordinary "sweat" income. Thus, although these 400 taxpayers paid more than $22 billion in income taxes, their average tax rate was just 16 percent in 2007. This rate is nearly 10 percentage points lower than it was in 1992, when the IRS began collecting these data.
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After all, that aforementioned $75 more per week that a median-income household started seeing in 2007 is barely enough to go out with the family to dinner and a movie, much less pay for a checkup with the pediatrician. That somewhat more essential item than a movie will set the typical family back about $95.
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http://www.politicsdaily.com/2010/02/20/the-fortunate-400-and-why-they-need-a-tax-haircut/

[galloglas]

1. A Haircut ?? Shave the Plutocratic bastards !!!!! n/t

[hay rick]

4. Start at the neckline. nt

[unblock]

2. but in exchange, they created an awful lot of jobs

in india....

[Patchuli]

3. EAT THE RICH!

But be sure to take the Tums or Pepto first....ick.